"but I was, as thou hast said, only a kobold, and what could I know
better than the rest of my race, save what thou didst teach me?
Meseemeth that if thou hadst but cumbered somewhat to teach me mercy in
my callow youth, all soulless as I was I might perchance have learned
somewhat of it."
"Oh, without doubt!" retorted Von Zimmern scornfully, as he shook off
the hand which lay pleadingly upon his arm; "but that was reason enough
why I should not teach. I was willing to suffer if thereby I could the
better compass my revenge in the end."
"And yet," interposed Albrecht, inquiringly, "when my marriage was about
to take place, thou didst all but prevent it when thou gavest to the
countess a ring by which she might know kobolds from men?"
"Yea," Herr Frederich replied, grinding his teeth; "for a moment the
thought of your present bliss was too much for me. I saw you look on
your bride with longing and delight, and I thought of mine from whom I
had been stolen. To see you so blest was a trial too great for even my
patience; and for a moment I was so weak that had you not interfered, I
had spoiled all, and cheated myself of the vengeance wrought out by all
those years of waiting and suffering. I thank you for that!"
There was silence in the wood for a moment while the two confronted each
other with piercing eyes. Overhead the wind soughed in the pine tops,
and to the mind of Von Zimmern the sound brought the memory of the many
long, weary days and nights he had listened to this wail in the
tree-tops of the Neiderwasser valley. A new frown of hate came over his
black face.
"Year after year," he burst out, "I pined in that cursed slavery, and
longed and longed for those I had left behind; and you offered me
nixies, and promised that I should be free to return to my own when I
had married you to a mortal wife."
"And that promise was kept," Albrecht responded.
"Kept!" the other echoed with fierce scorn. "You kept it when all that I
loved was gone. You set me free to seek a row of graves; to carry my
miserable, broken body about the world alone. God's blood!" he went on,
dashing the spurs into the bleeding flanks of his steed and still
reining the animal back with a strong hand; "at the grave of my wife I
took new oaths of vengeance, and I hastened back to keep them. It was
not hard! The folk of the wood were eager to help me by bringing the
count and the lady alone together in the forest, and he already had the
work of winning--"
"Silence!" broke in Albrecht, in a voice of thunder.
The wild excitement of Herr Frederich was infecting him also, despite
all his efforts at self-control. His cheeks were flushed, and he
breathed deeply and pantingly between his teeth. The cripple was not
slow to perceive these signs of growing passion, and he fanned the flame
with new taunts and deeper reproaches.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried out yet again; "to think you could play
with a soul and be safe! Was it then like a boar-spear with which your
hand could have its own will? Oh, the wise wood-creature!"
He broke into shrill laughter and bitter, till all the forest resounded;
and among the dark recesses of the pines it seemed that unseen lips
joined in the evil peal of wicked scorn and merriment.
"Now," he cried, and in his voice was a new ring of triumph, "our kobold
hath ruined not alone his own soul, lightly gotten and quickly lost, but
hers which could by no means be satisfied with such a brutish,
half-human thing as her husband. It is not a marvel that she must needs
turn toward a human lover after--"
The knight sprang upon him with a face distorted with rage and jealousy,
and caught the cripple by the throat. He dragged him from the saddle,
and Herr Frederich was as helpless in the grasp of those powerful hands
as if he were in the clutch of a lion. Albrecht dashed him to the earth.
His head was grazed by a stone, and for an instant everything swam
before his eyes. The thick-growing ferns closed over him like the waves
of the sea, and then they were parted by the face of Albrecht, who
stooped toward him.
"Thou art a craven and a liar!" Albrecht hissed between his set teeth.
Then again with strong hands he seized Herr Frederich, and lifted him
out of the bracken as if to dash him again to earth.
With a moan and a mighty effort to speak, the cripple, swinging in air,
flung at the knight one last bitter taunt.
"It is bravely done," he cried, "to kill the man your father maimed!"
The clutch of Albrecht relaxed instantly. He lowered the other until he
could lean against his horse, and then stood confronted to him with a
face which kept Von Zimmern silent.
"Thou art right," he said. "God knoweth that I and mine have done thee
evil enough already. I have need to ask thy forgiveness; and I would to
God that there were reparation which man might compass, so be it that
thus I could do by thee that which would undo what my father hath done
unto thee. Only, since that may not be, I warn thee that thou come not
in my sight again. I spare thy life when thou hast said words for which
death were the only fitting meed; but I pledge not myself if I see thee
again."
And as if he might not trust himself to say aught further, Albrecht
vaulted into the saddle and rode swiftly away through the wood.
XXII
HOW ALBRECHT RODE HOME.
Mighty was the struggle in the mind of Albrecht as he rode swiftly
through the forest when he had left Herr Frederich in the wood. His good
steed of his own instinct took the way back toward the castle, and
strained every sinew that he might the sooner come thither, for that his
master sharply spurred him on. Albrecht had only the thought that it
behooved him to put all the distance he might compass between his angry
heart and the temptation from which he fled, and he heeded not whither
he rode. The falling leaves of the beech trees, yellow as topaz, rustled
downward in bright showers as he sped; the pitchy cones of the pines,
glistening with unctuous drops, fell now and then with a dull thud upon
the soft carpet of brown needles beneath his horse's feet; the squirrels
chattered indignantly at his intrusion upon their wild and quiet domain;
and now and then some wood-bird flew startled from the thicket,
oftentimes so close as almost to touch him.
The cheeks of the knight burned with a fever which the wind of the
autumn afternoon, cool though it was and loaded with refreshing balsamic
scents, could not allay. His heart beat hotly with rage and love and
hatred and jealousy, until its fierce throbbing seemed wellnigh to choke
him. Through a rift in the trees he caught a glimpse of the towers of
Rittenberg; and he recalled the sight of them which he had when he first
came hither, and how Herr Frederich had pointed them out to him, saying
with his smile which now Albrecht so loathed:
"Now I will ride homeward, and await tidings of the speeding of your
wooing. Yonder is the castle, and there shall you find both bride and
soul!"
The memory surged over the mind of Albrecht like a bitter wave of the
northern sea, black and stinging with its icy cold. He struck his
clenched hand against his breast, and a groan escaped from his lips.
"It were better never to have had a soul!" he murmured.
A hollow laugh from unseen lips answered him. He looked around, suddenly
checking his horse with a wrench of the bridle which wellnigh threw the
good steed upon its haunches. He was silent an instant, as if he waited
for some one to call out in mockery. There was no sound save the panting
of his steed, the murmur of the soft wind in the tree-tops, and the
distant hoarse cry of a heron scared by the fowler and fleeing toward
the deeper recesses of the forest.
Albrecht put his hand upon his forehead like a man who awakens.
"I know ye, kobold crew!" he cried. "Ye shall not conquer. I defy ye,
for I have a soul."
Then again he struck the spurs into the horse's flanks and flew onward
toward Rittenberg. The dread that Erna might indeed be lost forever
beset him like a flame, and he did not pause even on the steep below the
castle gate. As if urged on by the furies he flew up the hill, and
dashed into the courtyard spattered with foam from his horse's bridle.
He threw his rein to a servitor, and hastened to his chamber. He dashed
his cap, its heron-plume torn and ragged from his wild ride through the
wood, upon the rush-strewn floor, and with great strides he began to
pace to and fro. He was confused by the emotions with which he
struggled. Never in the months since he became a man had so fierce a
rush of contending passions swept through his mind, and he was dizzied
by their force. Below in the courtyard he heard light laughter, and a
snatch of song which one of his men-at-arms had taught some
serving-wench; and the sounds carried him back to the wild, free life of
the forest. For a moment it seemed to him that he would gladly give up
all that he had won could he but be once more the gay, soulless Albrecht
who had come to Rittenberg; so strong was the rush of the old memory,
the desire for the old lawless, jocund kobold life, that he was ready to
curse the day that brought him to the castle and gave him a human bride.
Yet the thought of Erna and the passionate love for her which filled his
heart were too strong to be overcome, even by the swelling disquiet of
his soul. He could not yet think first of the high spiritual blessings
which the gift of a soul made possible to him, since ever the image of
his bride rose before his mind as the chief desire of his life.
So long did Albrecht wrestle with the temptations which raged within him
like ravening wolves, that the dusk began to rise from the forest to the
height where the castle stood, as a night-mist rises from beneath. He
thought of the wood-creatures who had mocked at his pain, and full well
did he know how fain were they to do his bidding did he charge them to
waylay Count Stephen in the forest and do him harm. Were it not madness
to let all the instincts of his whole life go because of the fetters
which were laid upon him by this thing which was so wondrously within
him, and which had changed him from the most blithe and most bold of all
the kobolds of the forest to the tame thing that dared not avenge
himself upon the knight who would steal from him the love of his wife?
The rushes were crushed and ground into dust beneath his heel as he
strode to and fro, and the great drops stood upon his forehead.
Suddenly in the gathering dusk he stood still, as does a knight who
turns at last upon his enemies and stands at bay, bidding them defiance.
All the might of his soul did he call up to aid him in the conflict with
the passions and temptations which beset him. There came into his
splendid face a look of boldness, of confidence, yet too of horror, as
of one who at last sees his foes for what they in truth are. A moment he
stood motionless; then with firm step and resolute mien he went down the
long corridor, which echoed to his tread, and descended the private
stairway which led to the castle chapel. There before the altar he bowed
himself in prayer.
Half an hour later, as Albrecht, calm and firm once more, was returning
to his chamber, he encountered Erna in the corridor. She had been to his
chamber to seek him, on her return from the hunt. The attendants had
stared open-mouthed when she rode into the courtyard unattended, but she
had given them no heed. She longed to fling herself into the arms of her
husband, that he might shield her from the danger and the temptation
which lay about her; but when she found his chamber vacant, suddenly she
recalled seeing Albrecht in the forest, riding with Herr von Zimmern
like an evil spirit behind him, and the thought brought with it a great
fear of what he might have seen. At that moment she heard his step in
the corridor approaching her. Her first impulse was to hide like a
guilty thing; then she remembered that she was not guilty. She saw
Albrecht standing on the threshold as if he were an angel of light. His
splendid strength seemed to her that of a god. She ran to him and flung
herself, sobbing wildly, into his arms.
It had seemed to Albrecht in the cool and holy quiet of the chapel, that
he had conquered passion and come to desire spiritual good even above
the love of this beautiful woman who now flung herself into his embrace,
weeping so sore; but now that he held her fast he thought again of the
folk in the wood, and how speedily they would rid him of his rival did
he but bid them. Even were they in league with Herr Frederich, as well
might be, they would obey him and do his will. He strained Erna to his
bosom in a strong and jealous clasp; then, as a wave returns that has
swept down the sea-beach, came again his will to conquer evil and to
beat down this temptation. When in a moment he spoke there was in his
voice no trace of the feelings which stormed within him.
"What hath affrighted thee, sweetheart?" he said, kissing her fondly.
She had clung to him, hiding her face, and feeling that his strong arms
could protect her from the world; that now was all harm put away and all
evil trodden down. Then when he spoke, it seemed to her, all unwrought
and excited as she was, that his voice, though soothing and
compassionate, was that of one who is no more cumbered by troubles such
as hers. He was to her like one who is removed from passion, and the
turmoil of a strife such as that which tossed her spirit, by the width
of half the wide sky. He was so calm, so kind; he soothed her like a
tired child when, forsooth, her soul hungered and thirsted to be
comforted with the apples and flagons of love. She knew not for what she
yearned, but she did not find it in his embrace, albeit he was full
tender and fond.
Albrecht saw that she strove with herself that she might recover her
calmness. She freed herself from his embrace, and stood wiping her
tears, and calming herself in woman's wise.
"It is only that thou hast wed a foolish and timorous wife," she
answered him; "I lost the hunt and rode home alone. Methought I heard
voices in the forest, and it hath unnerved me."
Albrecht changed color. What peril from the wood-folk might not Erna
have escaped! He started forward to take her again in his arms, but she
turned away with a smile.
"Belike it was nothing but my own wild fancy," she said. "Indeed, now
that once again I am safe at Rittenberg I know not if I heard aught. I
cannot have left the hunt more than half an hour agone. I did but turn
aside in the beech wood near the ford to follow a bird-cry for a little,
and I lost my way thereby."
She cast down her eyes, for in truth as she thus put by his question
with a feigned excuse she could not meet his gaze; and Albrecht,
remembering what had been said to him in the forest concerning the
estrangement of her affections, thrilled with a keen pang. She left
him, and passed down the corridor toward her chamber; and he stood and
watched her like one who seeth his dearest hope flee away before his
face.
XXIII
HOW ERNA SUFFERED.
It had been after a wild ride homeward that Erna met Albrecht and turned
away from him. When she dashed away from Count Stephen in the forest the
tears had gathered so thickly in her eyes that she was perforce minded
to trust to the instincts of her palfrey rather than to her own guidance
to bring her home to Rittenberg. Perchance they were tears of remorse,
of rage, of indignation, and perhaps not a little of excitement. Her
horse made his way bravely along the bridle-path, now brushing the
thickly set ferns and brambles, now skirting close to the banks of the
frothy river, and anon hurrying through the gathering shadows of the
black pine-wood; and still it seemed to Erna as if she were fleeing from
a pursuer who might at any moment rush upon her. She felt that her only
safety lay in her husband's arms, and with the thought came a bitter
pang in the sense of the wrong she had done Albrecht in listening so
long to the whispered love-making of her cousin.
And it befell Erna, as she rode home thus swiftly through the forest, to
come in mind to a burning sense of the change which had befallen her
since she had bidden Count Stephen farewell when he set out for
Strasburg. She seemed to look back from the depths to that height of
purity and virtue where she then stood, and it was with the pricking of
despair most profound that she felt how great was the distance between
what she was and what she had been. A sob of passion and of terror rose
in her throat as she thought of her husband, and for perhaps the first
time since their marriage she appreciated how he had risen from what he
had been. She did not realize that although she had been sinking, it was
from her that Albrecht had gained his inspiration, and that it was he
who had awakened in her those desires and instincts which had been her
temptation. She only felt degraded and unworthy to stand before him, but
with all the love of her heart she longed to fall at his feet and
implore his forgiveness.
And yet how could she confess to him how she had fallen? She could not
tell him that she had been kissed in the forest by another than himself,
and she feared if she might compass that he should understand that
after all she was not to blame. She had but been friendly to her cousin;
had listened to him as any lady might listen to a knight who was
handsome and debonair, and had responded only as might the dame of a
castle to her guest, or at most as might one reply to a gallant warrior
of her own blood. It had been but a glance now, and a pressure of the
hand then; a whispered word, a sigh with which the count had looked into
her eyes; and until to-day there had been nothing more. To-day----
Her cheeks glowed with the remembrance of that fervent kiss! She
thrilled again with the ardor of the glances with which Count Stephen
had regarded her as they rode to the meadows where the falcons had been
thrown off, and when now and then his eyes had encountered hers as they
watched the flight of the birds.
"My falcon outsaileth thine," he had murmured, "but his master's heart
can never leave thee!"
She lashed her palfrey afresh as she recalled the words; they seemed to
be again whispered into her ears, as if the sprites of the wood had
heard them and repeated them to her shame and bewilderment. Her thoughts
whirled through her head as the band of the Wild Huntsman,
tempest-driven, might sweep through the forest. Had she forgotten,
then, her love for her husband, she questioned herself, or was it that
she had been bewitched and entangled perchance in the meshes of wicked
sorcery? Surely, could she once take shelter in the arms of Albrecht and
feel his strong clasp about her, she should be safe from these wild and
sinful thoughts. She fled ever faster, hearing in the echoes of the
hoof-beats of her own palfrey the trampling of Count Stephen's steed
behind her.
Yet when she indeed stood face to face with Albrecht, it has been told
how his calm and his seeming coldness did so repel and chill her that
she was fain to escape from him without delay. He was to her as one
withdrawn from the turmoil and the temptation of things earthly; and
although she misjudged him gravely, yet none the less did she hasten
speedily to her chamber, there to be alone with herself, that she might
calm her mind and do away with the signs of agitation which Count
Stephen would too surely mark on his coming.
She had scarcely reached the quiet of her chamber when she heard the
hunt come clattering into the courtyard below, and the cries of page and
groom as the horses were led away, and the damsels and the retainers
entered the castle; and presently her woman Fastrade came into the
chamber, while close upon her heels followed Elsa, both of them a-quiver
with excitement and curiosity over what had happened, and of which they
had been able only to guess a part from the little which they had seen.
They might not ask their mistress concerning what had befallen, but they
endeavored to lead her on to tell, if so be they might.
"The gracious count was like to one distracted," Elsa said volubly, "at
that he had lost sight of the countess. He cried out that the Lady
Countess was lost in the forest, and we could not persuade him that
there could be no fear of that. He would remain to seek in the thickets,
despite whatever we could say."
"Sooth, I know the wood-ways too well to miss my road," Erna assented.
"So in truth did I tell the gracious count," Fastrade quoth, with a nod
of self-satisfaction; "but none the less was he still troubled lest some
mishap should have befallen."
"He was so deeply concerned," continued Elsa, taking up the word, "that
we feared lest perchance he might have offended--"
"Or that he might in sooth be to blame," remarked Fastrade, as Elsa
judiciously left her sentence unfinished.
"And Count von Rittenberg is so desirous of pleasing--"
The cunning wench once more let the words die on her lips half spoken.
"And such a gallant rider as he is," chorused Fastrade.
"And no one, sure, could in the round world cast a falcon better."
Erna sprang to her feet, her cheeks burning red with fiery shame.
"Get thee gone," she cried to one and then to the other; "and thee also!
Leave me!"
It came upon her burningly that it was to this that her dalliance with
the count had brought her. That the very damsels of the castle were so
well aware of her relations with her cousin that they thought to please
her by sounding his praises. Low indeed had she fallen! She cast herself
prostrate upon the stone floor, and grovelled there with weeping and
with the bitterness of shame. Was it that she who had so long been as
proud as the white heron whose plume she wore in state, had come to be
gossiped about by her own train, to be the jest of menials, to be spoken
of lightly and in very likelihood to be jested of with the tongue in the
cheek! The very thralls belike had the tale of her weakness by heart by
this, and could say it pat, as Father Christopher had never been able to
teach them to say the catechism.
Surely it was since her husband, Albrecht, had come to Rittenberg that
she had thus fallen from what she was; and yet he, in sooth, had
constantly waxed in faith and in godliness. Erna groaned in spirit,
since it appeared to her that it must indeed be that her nature was in
itself wicked and prone to fare downward, while that of Albrecht was by
some inner sanctity led ever in the way of grace. She fell into a
passion of tears and lamentation until her tears had run dry, and she
was exhausted with sobbing. Still prone upon the ground, her face hidden
in her dishevelled hair, she heard footsteps approach; and presently the
Lady Adelaide, her cane tapping sharply as she walked, stepped briskly
into the chamber.
"Body of Saint Fridolin!" cried the old dame, in a tone of shrill
amazement and anger; "what has happened? Elsa declares that thou wert
wroth without aught of provocation, and that thou dravest both her and
Fastrade out of the chamber, albeit she could not tell wherein they had
offended thee. In the name of Heaven's Queen, what hath come to thee?"
The tone in which the old dame spoke showed some traces of compassion as
she proceeded, for, to say sooth, she could not unmoved see the grief of
her niece, and she ended by bending over to lay her withered and
trembling old hand upon the fair prostrate head. Erna raised herself
into a sitting posture, and taking the wrinkled fingers in her own, she
kissed them warmly.
"Dear heart," she said, "I am in sore trouble, and I know not if there
may be comfort for such as I; but wilt thou not go thyself to Father
Christopher, so that none may know, and bid him that he come to me in
mine oratory? Let him not delay."
And thus Erna resolved to confess to Heaven the sin which had been in
her heart, albeit it had been only a vague desire.
XXIV
HOW COUNT STEPHEN MET HERR FREDERICH.
It was in sooth with angry mind that Count Stephen dashed about in the
wood, seeking for his cousin. He did not in his secret heart expect to
find her, but it seemed to him that if she had really fled to the castle
this would mean a giving up of the hope of her love. If she was ready to
yield to his wooing, she might indeed have been so taken by surprise and
so overcome by shyness at the moment as to seek instinctively to escape
him; but he refused to own to himself that he should not find her
lurking in some thicket, waiting to be discovered and forced by kisses
and caresses to own that her heart was his. It was that if this were
true they might be alone that he had insisted that the rest of the hunt
should return to the castle while he remained to seek in the by-paths,
and he concerned himself very little whether his story that the palfrey
of the countess had taken fright and run away with her was believed or
not.